Sutherland Springs Shooting

[Clean]

“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate.” “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”

That's ridiculous. A mentally unstable boy steals his mother's legally obtained weapons, kills her, and then goes on a rampage. What law could Congress have enacted that would have changed that outcome, short of going into every home in the U.S. and confiscating every gun?

The same is true of Sutherland Springs. The present laws would have stopped the killer from buying guns except for an governmental snafu. And you want to put even more reliance on the government to enforce even more invasive laws.

We need to put some effort into figuring out what cultural/societal issues are causing mentally unstable men to want to kill dozens of innocent men, women, and children before we do anything. And, it is just men. There's never been a woman mass shooter. What ever the issue(s) is(are), it doesn't seem to be effecting women.

 

[HANNAHORN]

That's ridiculous. A mentally unstable boy steals his mother's legally obtained weapons, kills her, and then goes on a rampage. What law could Congress have enacted that would have changed that outcome, short of going into every home in the U.S. and confiscating every gun?

The same is true of Sutherland Springs. The present laws would have stopped the killer from buying guns except for an governmental snafu. And you want to put even more reliance on the government to enforce even more invasive laws.

We need to put some effort into figuring out what cultural/societal issues are causing mentally unstable men to want to kill dozens of innocent men, women, and children before we do anything. And, it is just men. There's never been a woman mass shooter. What ever the issue(s) is(are), it doesn't seem to be effecting women.[


Make that "And, it is just white men". There fixed it for you.

 

[HANNAHORN]

Make that "And, it is just white men". There fixed it for you.

 

[OUBubba]

The right curls up into a fetal position and fears having a discussion, so they just tread water and hope the whole thing goes away.

LOL. Or not funding research into gun related crimes.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

Make that "And, it is just white men".

You know it's funny... when people bring up the thing about black crime rates, the response is that there are a lot of societal, cultural, and economic factors that go into it, and it shouldn't be attributed to race. We need to understand the underlying causes.

White shootings: White people are evil and need to stop breeding.

 

[Garmel]

Make that "And, it is just white men". There fixed it for you.

You must have missed that nightclub shooting by a muslim. Don't bring racism into the thread please.

 

[I35]

but we've clearly seen a continued set of mass killings since this time and no solutions even being seriously debated.

What is a solution? Just name one that you know will work. What could have been done to stop Vegas and Sutherland Springs? If everyone would obey the law you'd have a point. The problem is background checks mean nothing to criminals. Banning guns would mean nothing to criminals and Mentally Ill. They will get there hands on guns no matter what. Make it harder for them to get? How do you make it harder? Chicago has the strictest gun laws in America and guns are everywhere.

Something has to be done and I get that. Can we just start arresting people because we think they are a high risk to do a mass shooting? As unconstitutionally as that is, profiling would probably be the best results. The problem it would be harder to prevent American Citizens from doing these horrible acts because they are a part of our American Family. Muslim Terrorist would be simple to avoid if the Libs would just let us ban anybody coming from hotbed terrorist countries.

 

[Htown77]

Make that "And, it is just white men". There fixed it for you.

Mass shooters have been proportional to nearly every race according to every study. Hispanics are slightly under proportional.

December 7, 1994 - Collin Ferguson, a black man, murdered 6 people in New York.

August 3, 2010 - Omar Thornton, a black man, murdered 8 people in Connecticut.

July 7, 2016 - Micah Xavier Johnson, a black man, murdered 5 people in Dallas.

The shooters have come from all races, religions and creeds aka political views. What they likely have in common is they are all not right in the head.

 

[Htown77]

What is a solution?

I have proposed some common sense places to start and all I get back from many here is “we should do nothing.”

So everyone will agree since we can never 100% secure the border, we should just do away with checkpoints and open up the border completely, right?

We cannot stop all crime, crime still happens, so should we abolish police?

 

[Seattle Husker]

What is a solution?

I've started by commenting on HTown77's suggestions and added a return to the more controversial assault weapons ban. If you prefer, I'd also add high capacity magazines to that ban. The Texas shooter left the church after emptying 15 clips that held 30 rounds each. Again, these were developed as weapons of war and have no practical purpose in the hands of civilians.

Let's start with universal background checks though and ensure there is only one place for organizations, like the AFA, to report a domestic violence purveyor OR a mentally unstable person too.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Because the left jumps straight to banning things, confiscating things (or praising programs in other countries that have included confiscation), and then says that people who don't agree with them are evil people. The right curls up into a fetal position and fears having a discussion, so they just tread water and hope the whole thing goes away. Meanwhile, no one discusses some of the common sense issues that have been pointed out (such as why do we continually have people not being added to lists which should be flagging them as ineligible to buy guns?) - because if they do, they get shouted down with phrases like, oh, I don't know... "you care more about freedom than you do about kids dying."

Democrats don't want to reform process because it's easier to just pass more layers of legislation so they can say they've done something. It doesn't appease progressives that you streamlined reporting. They just see that as window dressing, since the main issue in their eyes is that people can buy guns. Gun violence is the gift that keeps on giving, because they know they can propose legislation that won't actually stop anything, and if it doesn't pass, they can campaign on what they tried to do and failed because of evil republicans. And if it does pass, and doesn't stop the shootings (because we all know it won't) they can say "see, we didn't do enough, we have to be stricter" and the bar moves on down the line.

Republicans may or may not want to reform process, but they're not willing to spend time and political capital doing it, because they don't think it will make people like them more, and that's pretty much what drives most republican legislators.

So we just argue about stuff that doesn't matter and won't help. And some then say that means we don't care about kids dying, because we didn't just lay down and accept whatever solution the loudest yellers happened to demand.

How many violations were committed during the Obama administration of people illegally obtaining firearms? And how many did they prosecute?

http://www.dailywire.com/news/23282...ma-administration-not-hank-berrien#exit-modal

This older CNN article lays out some of the Obama administration arguments about why enforcement was down.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/09/politics/obama-executive-orders-gun-control-enforcement-gap/index.html

But since prosecution is apparently up about 23 percent this year on those cases, I'm not sure the Obama argument is completely honest. If it really is about needing more funding to prosecute gun laws, it seems like that'd be pretty popular legislation to introduce. And I suspect it would gain a lot of bi-partisan support.

You clearly don't want a discussion but rather a lectern to lecture. Reread your own passage and tell me how much of it was a point of the finger to the "other" side rather than a real discussion on solutions? Notice that all the fault is the "other" side? How does that style of argument work with your children?

Here's a hint, I could care less about what Democrats or Republicans have done previously. Yes, I do believe like Crockett that the NRA has done everything in its significant power to ensure background checks and gun registrations are as challenging as possible at the state and federal level. They are the most powerful lobby in the county and if they wanted this process to be smooth it would happen overnight.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

Notice that all the fault is the "other" side?

I didn't notice that, because I said the opposite.

 

[Seattle Husker]

I didn't notice that, because I said the opposite.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[Joe Fan]

....2. Improve the mental health system. Make policy changes that keep dangerous mentally deranged people locked up. Adequately fund mental health facilities......

I feel like this part of this discussion has been had before in here.

There is history. More folks used to be institutionalized and it used to be much easier to put unstable folks in institutions. That ended in the late 70s and into the 80s. Suddenly, in the US, there were alot more people on the street than before. We began to call them homeless. Reagan took the blame from the media (go figure).

But there was a lot more going on than simply Reagan Era cut backs. In the 1960s, the ACLU began a series of lawsuits attacking institutionalization from a civil rights perspective. The legal rulings combined took over a decade to fully bubble forth but the end result of those suits is that it is much more difficult to do this anymore.

Here are most of the SCOTUS rulings that control this area of the law
https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/legal/mental-illness-supreme-court.html

 

[ProdigalHorn]

We'll have to agree to disagree.

You're the one who misrepresented my post. I'll certainly admit to generalization, but for the most part, that's pretty much how it plays out every time, and as I very clearly said in my post, neither side does what it needs to do.

 

[Joe Fan]

As you might imagine, memes were instantly created to mock the idiocy of our media
Here are a few of them, if the idea of this does not offend you

Spoiler

 

[ProdigalHorn]

Chainsaw bayonet... outstanding....

 

[Seattle Husker]

You're the one who misrepresented my post. I'll certainly admit to generalization, but for the most part, that's pretty much how it plays out every time, and as I very clearly said in my post, neither side does what it needs to do.

Agreed that neither side does what it needs to do.

I guess I got hung up that this was the extent of your criticism of Republicans:

Republicans may or may not want to reform process, but they're not willing to spend time and political capital doing it, because they don't think it will make people like them more, and that's pretty much what drives most republican legislators.

You know...the Republicans may or may not want to reform but the Democrats:

Because the left jumps straight to banning things, confiscating things (or praising programs in other countries that have included confiscation), and then says that people who don't agree with them are evil people. The right curls up into a fetal position and fears having a discussion, so they just tread water and hope the whole thing goes away. Meanwhile, no one discusses some of the common sense issues that have been pointed out (such as why do we continually have people not being added to lists which should be flagging them as ineligible to buy guns?) - because if they do, they get shouted down with phrases like, oh, I don't know... "you care more about freedom than you do about kids dying."

Democrats don't want to reform process because it's easier to just pass more layers of legislation so they can say they've done something. It doesn't appease progressives that you streamlined reporting. They just see that as window dressing, since the main issue in their eyes is that people can buy guns. Gun violence is the gift that keeps on giving, because they know they can propose legislation that won't actually stop anything, and if it doesn't pass, they can campaign on what they tried to do and failed because of evil republicans. And if it does pass, and doesn't stop the shootings (because we all know it won't) they can say "see, we didn't do enough, we have to be stricter" and the bar moves on down the line.

No equivocating there. Hopefully you can see the full frontal attack on the "left" and the milk toast criticism of the "right" which was the reason for my initial response. Too harsh? Maybe I need to develop thicker skin but I don't think pointing the finger helps start a good dialogue.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Chainsaw bayonet... outstanding....

Chainsaw bayonet...that would truly be life imitating art. I think I used one while playing Doom or some other video game.

 

[Joe Fan]

Chainsaw bayonet... outstanding....

See edit^

 

[Horns11]

I know this is a little off topic, but I've never understood the need for plinking. Sure, it looks cool in competitions and stuff, but I don't think Average Joe needs to go do it. It kind of falls under the same personal responsibility category of alcohol use. Sometimes you want to tie one on, but because it's unwise, you shouldn't, and there are laws against overserving. LCM's seem to be the way to go to solve for mass shootings. And you'd still have your weapons for self defense and hunting. And, you know, when the government uses its tyranny to try and mess with you.

 

[Joe Fan]

 

[Clean]

After Kelley was discharged from the Air Force, he was accused of sexual assault in Comal County. Some how, the Comal County Sheriff's Dept. never followed up on the incident. He was never charged. The current Comal Sheriff is looking into why the incident was dropped, just like the Air Force is looking into why they never sent his records to the FBI. But the sexual assault incident was another snafu that could have stopped him from getting guns.

Looking at the shooter's history, you just have to shake your head in amazement at how poorly the system functioned.

 

[Sangre Naranjada]

They are the most powerful lobby in the county and if they wanted this process to be smooth it would happen overnight.

Why, in your opinion, is the NRA the most powerful lobby in the country?

 

[Phil Elliott]

Looking at the shooter's history, you just have to shake your head in amazement at how poorly the system functioned.

And yet, this is the same system that gun-control folks say we should give more power to.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

BTW the reason I know that CNN is biased in that graphic is because they deliberately refused to include the optional attachable bouquet of roses, air-freshener, and t-shirt cannon.

 

[Htown77]

And yet, this is the same system that gun-control folks say we should give more power to.

I am not a gun control folk and dont think the system should get more power, but I do think it is broken like our border control system and we should replace it with a better system rather than do nothing.

 

[horninchicago]

I am not a gun control folk and dont think the system should get more power, but I do think it is broken like our border control system and we should replace it with a better system rather than do nothing.

The systems were all in place to prevent this depraved loon from legally purchasing firearms. What more could be done?

 

[Seattle Husker]

Why, in your opinion, is the NRA the most powerful lobby in the country?

Lot's of members, well funded and great organization of their lobbying structure. I'm not a fan of the NRA but won't be critical of their lobbying prowess. Their opponents need to organize better.

 

[ShAArk92]

So what is the solution for reducing the amount of mass shootings?

BE READY.

legislative actions will major in 2A erosion and minor in an effectivity.

If we’re willing to place an asterisk on the 2A (“I’m pro 2A but ...”) .. on what other of the 9 remaining are we willing to qualify?

License to be on a BBS to address public policy? (Hello free speech)

Permit to be a Baptist?

I know ... a soldier has the authority to demand quarter in your residence. Who wouldn’t want to support our troops with availing room/board whenever they arrived on your front step?

Ah ... wait a sec ... who likes jury duty anyway.... let just have a judge make the call.

See???